UPDATE: Refer to this legal complaint, filed in October on behalf of the Devil’s Garden ranchers against the U. S. Forest Service, for reducing the AUMs available to livestock.

The Forest Service had issued permits for 26,880 AUMs per year on the WHT, which means at least 4,480 cow/calf pairs were allowed, assuming they graze six months per year or less. The allowable number of horses on the WHT is 402. These are aimed-at numbers. The horses would consume 4,824 AUMs annually.

The carrying capacity of the WHT is unknown.

The pre-gather wild horse population was 3,900. The livestock population at the time of the gather is also unknown.

“Currently, wild horses on the Modoc NF [National Forest] are consuming more forage than is allocated in the wild horse territory for livestock, wildlife, and wild horses combined.”

They seem to forget that these lands were to be managed ‘principally but not necessarily exclusively’ for wild horses.

If the Forest Service is forced to achieve the targets, there will be roughly ten cow/calf pairs on the range for every wild horse, a ‘thriving ecological balance’ indeed.